I’ll visit her...Military Recruiting – Bleg
Back in November 2007 I mentioned how my employer – Travelers Insurance – received a commendation from G.I. Jobs on its practice of supporting the military thru recruiting efforts and job placements. This is something the company really does take very seriously, and none moreso than the head of the division I work in. She is fully committed to supporting the military in any way she can and as an Executive Vice President she is in a position to really make things happen.
She has extended to me an a very unique opportunity to possibly be part of a company-wide committee to assist military personnel who are looking for jobs in the private sector – this committee already includes a disabled Vietnam Vet and 2 vets from the first Gulf War, all employees of Travelers. Eventually the program will target active military, reservists, retirees and wounded veterans. We would work with various veterans groups and active military recruiting offices of all branches. Given the scope of what she is talking about, I could see this becoming a sharing between many companies outside of Travelers. The possibilities are endless.
I can’t begin to express how excited I am at the prospect of working on this at some point in the future. My participation is not a guarantee yet, but I remain hopeful.
To that end, I’d love to get myself prepped in advance and I need your help for that. I’m calling out to all of you who are active, retired, reservists – anyone with a military background who at some point has tried to secure employment in the private sector. I’d like to know what worked well and what didn’t. What were your interviewing experiences like? How do you think your military background affected your ability to get a job?
Anything you can share with me about your experiences will of course be kept strictly confidential – no names will be used. I’d like to assemble a report to give to my division-head, even if I’m ultimately not able to serve on the committee.
Of course, please share this with anyone in your world who might have something to say – good or bad. I want to hear it all so that Travelers, and hopefully other companies, will get the tremendous benefits of hiring our courageous soldiers.
Anyone interested in sending me info can do so at: PooRahBunny@comcast.net.
Thank you!
Update 01.08.08:
Thank you all! I’m thrilled to already see so many of you commenting. But I think I may not have articulated very well what I’m looking for.
This isn’t about how former military find jobs in the private sector. This is about how to help a Fortune 100 company craft policies that recognize the unique contributions people from the military can make to a business situation.
Posted by KrisinNewEngland
On January 7th, 2008 under Military.
Comments: 12
Comments
Comment from unkawill
Time: January 7, 2008, 5:53 pm
Capt.Lex, I think this needs a wider distribution channel than just the Flight Deck.
Kris, I have not been unemployed, by choice, for more than 3 days in my entire adult life. My personal experance is that employers are overjoyed to hire Ex military people because they know they will be getting a motivated,dedicated,achiever with leadership and people skills, who will work rings around the typical self esteem junkies that the schools are putting out these days.
Comment from lex
Time: January 7, 2008, 7:52 pm
I’ll see if I can’t widen the net on this one. Being that no one is *actively* recruiting me just now, I’m not personally qualified to judge. Might be that some other folks are.
Pingback from That whole “transition” thing
Time: January 7, 2008, 7:57 pm
[...] asks what it is that leads to a successful military-to-civilian transition – and her interest is not just academic: I’m calling out to all of you who are active, retired, reservists – anyone with a military [...]
Comment from Ray Robison
Time: January 7, 2008, 9:40 pm
My job came by sticking to companies that do a lot of military contracting. A lot of other companies had bizarre ideas of what I did. For instance, when I first got out I talked with a recruiter and told him I was a Captain in the signal corp and he told me I could pull network cable. Wow. SO to really maximize your experience, stay near the bases, stay near the research areas as I have done in Huntsville, Alabama.
BTW, my company is hiring engineers and operations research analysts, I work in modeling and simulations, and we also always need computer programmers. Send me an email if you have a hook-up.
Ray Robison is the author of Both In One Trench: Saddam’s Secret Terror Documents
Comment from Max Damage
Time: January 7, 2008, 11:54 pm
There are two things in a resume that move them to interview status if they have any other possible qualification for the job — military experience and farm experience. I *want* those folks. Why? Work ethic. You cannot take care of animals, plant a field, or pull a watch abiding by the clock and considering your 8 hours time filled. If you’ve ever served, if you’ve ever been responsible for critters or planting the back 40 or harvesting same, you know the mission is everything and must be completed. Hours are what clock-watchers care about. Military and farmers focus on the goal, not the clock.
That has served me well over the past 20 years or so. Of the farm kids and those with military experience I have hired, none have disappointed in terms of their work ethic.
– Max
Comment from brockkl
Time: January 8, 2008, 10:17 am
I would like to have seen interviewers who were able to ferret out what my job in the Navy (1979-1984) could cross to in civilian life. I was a Sonar Technician, and not real good at telling them about all of the heavy electronics that involved. They were more like, “oh we don’t have any Sonars here” instead of: Ok, that would be wiring, digital/analog, microprocessors, etc.. It didn’t matter how much I told them that Sonar covered a wide range of elctronics, and not just a black box that only does one thing, I just couldn’t convince them I would be a great fit.
When something like this occurs, a “try me for x days, if you like, buy me. If not then toss me.” approach may bring suprising results. Like Max said, with the military work ethic, it’s hard to go wrong. What I have lacked in specilized skills, I more than make up for in CAN DO.
Comment from Max Damage
Time: January 8, 2008, 11:25 pm
Brockkl, I like your approach. Once of the guys I hired was a former sonar tech. We went out for a few beers once after work (I’m kind of informal that way) and the subject came up why I’d hire a sonar tech for a VoiP tech role. My response was it’s the same thing — converting audio to digital, passing it from one system to another, knowing what each system did to it, and keeping track of what signal is coming from where.
Besides, if you can trace a circuit from one end of a warship at sea to the other on 3 hours sleep, you’re the guy I need in the wiring closet at 0200 when I just lost connectivity to 38 offices.
Some of the best telco techs I’ve worked with have been former military. I expect they just need to tell the HR types who do the initial screening what their jobs were in terms the HR types can recognize. Most job postings have key words in them (VoIP, TCP/IP, SIP, H.323, g.711u, yadda yadda) and the first people your resume hits are in HR and they’re scanning for those acronyms because they have no idea what they mean, they’re just the first filter. I don’t care if you lie to get past them, I care about your ability to do the job and work ethic to see it’s completed. Explain your actions in the interview, the most important thing is to get past HR to my desk so I can call you for that interview. The folks who actually make the recommendation and do the interviews don’t care about the acronyms, we just want to ensure there’s some experience in the field and those are the protocols, codecs, and such we use.
– Max
Comment from Steve
Time: January 10, 2008, 7:44 pm
“This is about how to help a Fortune 100 company craft policies that recognize the unique contributions people from the military can make to a business situation.”
Simple: give the ex-military type a mission and get out of his or her way! The single most annoying aspect of the business world is all the meetings. And the meetings to plan meetings…
Comment from Max Damage
Time: January 11, 2008, 1:29 am
I have a saying: “Rome did not become the greatest empire the world has seen by holding meetings. It did so by killing all those opposed to it.” There’s a real business lesson in that.
Likewise, as a senior tech in the field there is nothing that displeases me more than a project that has fallen behind and a manager that decides three meetings per day for an hour each is the way to solve the problem. Meeting number 2 I introduce myself thus, “My mission is to get this work done. I can do that, or I can sit here and communicate that nothing is being done at this time. Your choice.”
In a way I kind of liked it more when I was in management. I could almost feel the brain cells die for lack of stimulation, but the work was so much easier seeing as how it was delegated.
– Max
Comment from KrisinNewEngland
Time: January 11, 2008, 6:07 am
The meeting thing – oh believe me I know where you guys are coming from. I am an Executive Assistant – which means I am in charge 
But it also means I juggle calendars for multiple senior level execs; the number of meetings they either schedule or somehow are required to attend is criminal. And I do wonder, every day, how necessary it all is to making progress.
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